Show Us Your Dawn Renders!

[Hornet3d]

Hey everyone! We appreciate your points of view and personal experiences on your software of choice, however, this may not be the proper thread for these types of discussions.

If you feel that you want to continue discussions perhaps we could have one of our CVBees move posts over into a new thread?

(hint: Dawn might stop complaining to us if you posted some Dawn renders along with your discussions.)

Enjoy creating!

I apologise, it was me that sent the thread of track and quickly wished I had kept my mouth shut. Haven't had a lot of spare time to spend with Dawn this week but I see if I can find time to make sure she makes an appearance.

 

[NapalmArsenal]

Time for a

Ninja!

The Dawn's are now taking control!! Please join in the Pulp Fiction dancing routine!!
And to quote Fallout Boy-------- I wanna dance like Uma Thurman!!

 

[Art_of_Mind]

Time for a

Ninja!

The Dawn's are now taking control!! Please join in the Pulp Fiction dancing routine!!
And to quote Fallout Boy-------- I wanna dance like Uma Thurman!!
View attachment 25560

Are those some of your textures?

 

[NapalmArsenal]

Are those some of your textures?

The Leotard,Skirt, and Jacket are mine from the Dazzling Denim outfit for Dawn the hippy cut off shorts are CWRWs with Dawn's Skinny jeans.

 

[Hornet3d]

I do tend to experiment on occasions and when I do I often try out different things in one render which usually creates some strange renders. This is one of those as I am experimenting with expressions while also playing with a new purchase and playing with layers in post work.

Despite all the rave over weight mapping one of my biggest problems with 3d figures is not the bending but the difficulty in getting some realistic expressions. I never quite got the hang of it with V4 and while Dawn showed promise I feel I have still not really got a handle on it. This was one of the core reasons for the experiment as the more you get to know a figure them more you learn the secrets.

 

[Glitterati3D]

One thing I learned, Hornet, is that many times an expression looks grotesque in the display but renders very nicely. So, don't go just by the posing display. I do a quick area render of an expression before I give up on it.

 

[Hornet3d]

One thing I learned, Hornet, is that many times an expression looks grotesque in the display but renders very nicely. So, don't go just by the posing display. I do a quick area render of an expression before I give up on it.

That is a good tip, thanks you I will keep that in mind in future.

 

[Glitterati3D]

That is a good tip, thanks you I will keep that in mind in future.

Glad I could help.

And, now my latest playing around. I like this Mankahoo hair (Hr-179) but it was a little stiff and hard to use seated. I created a seated morph for it and then used some of the supplied morphs to enhance it. I'll throw together an INJ file and send it off to Ali in case he wants to offer it to his customers.

 

[Hornet3d]

Glad I could help.

And, now my latest playing around. I like this Mankahoo hair (Hr-179) but it was a little stiff and hard to use seated. I created a seated morph for it and then used some of the supplied morphs to enhance it. I'll throw together an INJ file and send it off to Ali in case he wants to offer it to his customers.

View attachment 25593

Simply beautiful. I love it when someone is skilled enough to make long hair play ball with seated and laying poses.

 

[Art_of_Mind]

I do tend to experiment on occasions and when I do I often try out different things in one render which usually creates some strange renders. This is one of those as I am experimenting with expressions while also playing with a new purchase and playing with layers in post work.

Despite all the rave over weight mapping one of my biggest problems with 3d figures is not the bending but the difficulty in getting some realistic expressions. I never quite got the hang of it with V4 and while Dawn showed promise I feel I have still not really got a handle on it. This was one of the core reasons for the experiment as the more you get to know a figure them more you learn the secrets.

View attachment 25592

Is this a Dawn character that you are making?
What render engine are you using?
Looking great!

 

[Alisa]

Too fun, NA!

Hornet - that's stunning!

Traci - such a sweet image Agree about the hair and pose. And I love Ali's hair!

 

[Glitterati3D]

Traci - such a sweet image Agree about the hair and pose. And I love Ali's hair!

Thanks, Alisa! I sent the INJ file off to Ali so we will see if he uses it. If not, I'll put it in the Resources folder for Hivers who have the hair and might find it useful.

 

[Hornet3d]

Is this a Dawn character that you are making?
What render engine are you using?
Looking great!

Thank you so much for the interest. It is not a character I am making, as such, but a character I created from Dawn SE when the figure was launched. I have very limited skills so the character is a blend of a lot of commercial Dawn morphs and the skin is a blend of skins from about four different characters but is essentially Master Skin Resource 7 from 3Dream. I am trying to put together a story book and this is the heroine of the story so she appears in almost all my renders.

I tend to work with only one or two characters, I know that others work with many at the same time but I find I need to get to know a figure to get anywhere near my goals. I used my V4 character for about three years and many of the tricks I learnt during that time easily transferred to Dawn. Staying with one figure I also find any restrictions and for me V4 was not good on expressions, mind you a lot of that was probably due to my limited skills. Dawn SE showed promise in this area from day one and so I continue to try a push what I can do. Posting here helps and this is a good example where I am sure Glitterati3D's suggestion that previews often look grotesque but the final renders good will certainly help in the future.

I use Poser only as I think I have lots more to learn and would rather build on my Poser knowledge that spend time learning a new program. I did not upgrade to Poser 11, which is a long winded way of saying this is a Firefly render, at least for the character. The rest of the composition is down to the skills of Antje and the lovely backgrounds and elements from 'The Raven' package. These were all added using layers in Paint Shop Pro but no post work was done on the render layer so it is just as it left Poser.

I should also mention that I have used Real Mouth for Dawn from Ironman13 on this character which opens up some more options, such as the gap in the front teeth, when the teeth are on display such as this.

 

[Gadget Girl]

One thing I learned, Hornet, is that many times an expression looks grotesque in the display but renders very nicely. So, don't go just by the posing display. I do a quick area render of an expression before I give up on it.

It's funny, I feel like the opposite tends to happen to me, I like the expression and then render it, and don't like it anymore. A lot of it has to do with lighting. Lighting can effect an expression a great deal so when the lights are actually rendered, it can change how the expression looks. And of course unless you have your face camera angled the same way as the camera you intend to render from, that issue can increase because the shadows could be very different at a different angle.

I should also mention that I have used Real Mouth for Dawn from Ironman13 on this character which opens up some more options, such as the gap in the front teeth, when the teeth are on display such as this.

Hmm, I'll have to look at that one. I have to say, expression is something I've been trying to go back and spend more time learning, and yes I think you are right it's different for every figure, especially since expressions tend to be more influenced by morphs than joints. Are there any other favorite expression packs you use?

 

[quietrob]

Glad I could help.

And, now my latest playing around. I like this Mankahoo hair (Hr-179) but it was a little stiff and hard to use seated. I created a seated morph for it and then used some of the supplied morphs to enhance it. I'll throw together an INJ file and send it off to Ali in case he wants to offer it to his customers.

View attachment 25593

I love the render. She looks so sweet! I do have a question about the hair. I was wondering how good are the morphs? Do they allow a wide range of movement from the hair? The promo's only showed how one could fit it to another figure but not how well the morphs worked.

 

[quietrob]

I do tend to experiment on occasions and when I do I often try out different things in one render which usually creates some strange renders. This is one of those as I am experimenting with expressions while also playing with a new purchase and playing with layers in post work.

Despite all the rave over weight mapping one of my biggest problems with 3d figures is not the bending but the difficulty in getting some realistic expressions. I never quite got the hang of it with V4 and while Dawn showed promise I feel I have still not really got a handle on it. This was one of the core reasons for the experiment as the more you get to know a figure them more you learn the secrets.

View attachment 25592

I've noticed the hardest thing to get right is the smile. You might try the morph brush if you're not happy with the smile. I do like hers. I suspect it's because she's your favorite character.

 

[Glitterati3D]

I love the render. She looks so sweet! I do have a question about the hair. I was wondering how good are the morphs? Do they allow a wide range of movement from the hair? The promo's only showed how one could fit it to another figure but not how well the morphs worked.

Actually, there's a number of morphs included and they are useful and helpful. I just got tired of dialing and dialing to get a sit position and took the hair into the modeler to create one. I did, however, also use some of the included morphs to finish off the "sit" - especially the "tail" ones to get it to lie on the floor better.

Long hair is tough to pose, especially one as long as this - it goes almost to her knees. Ali provides a lot of morphs in this one to help, I just got frustrated and made my own. LOL!

I am waiting for a render to finish, but I'll screen cap the morph list for you when it's done.

 

[Hornet3d]

I've noticed the hardest thing to get right is the smile. You might try the morph brush if you're not happy with the smile. I do like hers. I suspect it's because she's your favorite character.

I think you are right, for me at least a good smile is the most difficult to achieve and if it shows the teeth there is the added problem of making the teeth look good. I use a great deal of commercial products to produce my renders but in many cases commercial expressions can both help an hinder. Much of this is character specific and well produced expressions may work well on the base figure but do not work well on a character created form that base figure. As my figure is heavily morphed the differences can be extreme.

 

[Hornet3d]

It's funny, I feel like the opposite tends to happen to me, I like the expression and then render it, and don't like it anymore. A lot of it has to do with lighting. Lighting can effect an expression a great deal so when the lights are actually rendered, it can change how the expression looks. And of course unless you have your face camera angled the same way as the camera you intend to render from, that issue can increase because the shadows could be very different at a different angle.



Hmm, I'll have to look at that one. I have to say, expression is something I've been trying to go back and spend more time learning, and yes I think you are right it's different for every figure, especially since expressions tend to be more influenced by morphs than joints. Are there any other favorite expression packs you use?

The base expressions for Dawn are good but I do find myself using the Dawn Expression Morphs from Nightsong more and more. The pre-configured expressions seem extreme for my particular character but I can get some to work by using the trick someone suggested of applying the expression at frame 30 and stepping back until the expression looks right. There are some that work by doing this but many do not and then it is a question of going to the individual morphs which are extensive. They are broken down to groups such as eyes, eyebrows, cheeks, lips, lower face which gives a lot to play with and I often use them in conjunction with the Dawn base morphs. Of course this is based on my character and the pre-configured expressions may well work on other characters but, if not, the base morphs would add a great deal to any character.

 

[Hornet3d]

Actually, there's a number of morphs included and they are useful and helpful. I just got tired of dialing and dialing to get a sit position and took the hair into the modeler to create one. I did, however, also use some of the included morphs to finish off the "sit" - especially the "tail" ones to get it to lie on the floor better.

Long hair is tough to pose, especially one as long as this - it goes almost to her knees. Ali provides a lot of morphs in this one to help, I just got frustrated and made my own. LOL!

I am waiting for a render to finish, but I'll screen cap the morph list for you when it's done.

I don't have this particular hair but I have to say that, in general this vendor does include a large number of morphs in each product. I have used many of the 'HR-' range, and still do, because they are so good to work with.